We saw the ‘animal man’: Nar Bahadur Sunar

 First Published on Friday, February 20, 2009

I was at Zaluk on the day most couples across the globe were busy celebrating Valentine's Day. More or less an exciting adventure was awaiting us when we came to know that there was a Yeti sighting at this remote place in 2004 in the month of April. Zaluk is a small place with a population below 300, and the world-famous Changu Lake is an hour and a half drive from here. 

Shital Pradhan,  L.T Bhutia, Nar Bhadhur Sunar (eye witness), Pranay Pradhan, Biren Gurung, and Praveen Pradhan (the spot where the yeti was sighted is behind the photograph )

On my trip, I was assisted by the members of Sangharsh, an upcoming local NGO from Rongli Bazaar. We were a five-member team, Praveen Pradhan (President of Sangharsh), Pranay Pradhan, Swarup Ra, I, and Biren Gurung. There are talks that Sangharsh would like to place a signboard of Yeti sightings. We also had great support from L.T Bhutia, Head Master of Zaluk Government School in our journey, who helped us identify the house of the Yeti eyewitness along with other necessary information required for us..

We came across Nar Bahadur Sunar, an old man in his mid-sixties, and he believes that he, along with 10 other labourers and a GREF Officer, had come across a Yeti in April of 2004 while going for their daily work. Sunar, a farmer, was working as a baidar then. They were on a GREF vehicle, and the "animal man," as he called, was on the other side of the road along the Valley, walking two feet along the bushes of pareng (a bamboo variety). 

The distance between them was around 200 to 250 meters. They saw the back portion of the animal for over half an hour, and suddenly, it vanished around the bushes. It was noted that the army helicopter did a vain search over that particular region for over a few days, but nothing more could be known. Such an incident was not known until then and had not been heard after that, but the people of Zaluk agreed that they heard strange voices coming from the nearby valley at that particular instant. 

                                            The valley where the animal man was spotted

The people who saw it claim it to be a "Sokpa," as Yeti is better called in this part of the land. For them, that animal was not a bear as it is commonly found in that region, and they could identify with it. Another interesting part of the story is that after a few days of the incident, the villagers did find footsteps on the marshy land near the overflowing water that measured something like "from an elbow joint to a fingertip" long. Since the sighting of the so-called animal man was not reported to wildlife or other higher authorities, we missed a good opportunity to find information about the Yetis.

Nar Bahadur Sunar said the villagers recovered a water pipe along the bushes inside the forest that was crushed and thrown away from the water source so that no man or any other animal could do it. We talked with Jeena Chettri, daughter of Nar Bahadur Sunar, who added that the animal was seen dragging his feet. Still, they could not realize whether the animal had its feet on the opposite side as it is usually believed. The "thing" had black hair covered all over the body, and the length was so much it looked as if a woman had let her hair free, told Jeena in her own words. She added that those GREF workers whistled and made a sound to that animal that it hurried inside the bushes.

Well, it is too early to say that the animal man those people claimed was not the mysterious Yeti the world is searching for. I had gone through the wrinkled face and the piercing eye of the man in his mid-sixties and believed in his word that the thing he saw, along with his daughter and fellow workers, was a Yeti. I think he could differentiate a bear from an animal they had never seen before that they thought looked more like a human.